The Richards

The Richards family are the main protagonists of Jagged Alliance, consisting of Jack Richards and his daughter Brenda Richards. A family of brilliant scientists, they headed the research efforts on the island of Metavira researching its radioactively-mutated Fallow Trees and Brenda had just made breakthroughs regarding the medicinal quality of the sap when their operations were sabotaged and taken over by one of Brenda's research scientists, Lucas Santino, and the pair are forcibly confined to their own compound in one corner of the island.

Jack Richards is the one to initially contact the commander (player) in a last ditch effort to retake the island and salvage his work, and he provides the player with seed funds for the operation out of his own pocket.

Jack and his daughter Brenda are both present to brief the commander once they arrive on Metavira. They also act as managers of the processing plants and facilities on the island that are captured, as a liason between the player and the natives, and are present throughout the game to inform the player of changing game conditions, the status of the plants and workers, and to notify the player of missions to accomplish.